Page 19 of Billionaire Dragon King’s Rejected Mate

Unfortunate, he thought, even as something in his chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with irritation.

“Fine,” he said, brisk and controlled. “Let’s get this over with.”

She fell into step beside him as they moved toward the entrance. Her silence lasted just long enough to feel intentional before she spoke again.

“I read through the preliminary reports,” she said, her voice shifting into a professional cadence. “There’s a lot of wasted space in the eastern section, and the current branding is completely disconnected from the demographic shift in the area.”

He glanced at her with the intention to cut her off, to remind her of her place. Instead, he saw the spark.

The unmistakable excitement in her eyes as she looked out over the park and revealed how much she genuinely cared about the work itself.

“Go on,” he heard himself say, despite everything he had so carefully planned.

Her gaze flicked to him and surprise flashed briefly before she continued. Her words gained momentum as she outlined possibilities, improvements, strategies that aligned far too well with his own thoughts. Her instincts were sharp and unpolished in a way that made them all the more dangerous.

She’s good, he admitted silently, the realization settling with reluctant certainty. And that was exactly the problem.

Because as he walked beside her through the fading remains of a dying business and listened to her ideas, he watched the way she came alive in the middle of it. Chance knew with a clarity that left no room for denial that pushing her away was going to be a far greater challenge than he had anticipated.

And worse still, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to succeed.

Chapter 8

Randi

Randi led them to the water slide that she had heard so much about in her research. It was the most popular ride in the park, and from the looks of it, it had been enjoyed thoroughly.

“Talk about being rode hard and put up wet,” she commented.

Chance murmured his agreement. “At least in this case, it’s supposed to be wet.”

Unlike most slides with their winding staircases, this one offered a lift, which looked more like a cheap version of an elevator, that went straight up to the top of the slide. While Randi wasn’t afraid of heights, elevators were a totally different story. She blamed action movies for the thoughts that always haunted her mind whenever she stepped into the suffocating box of doom.

Even at TimeOff with its multi-stories she used the stairs every chance she got.

She groaned inwardly when Chance walked right up to the lift. “Shall we?”

She wasn’t about to lose face with him, so she stepped inside and he pulled the door closed behind them. She held her breath for that first moment of swooop in the pit of her stomach that always started an elevator ride.

In her opinion, the lift had outlived its functionality as it squeaked and squealed while they rose. Halfway up the tower, where the wind came sharp and insistent off the gulf, the narrow metal platform beneath her feet gave a slow, queasy sway that made her stomach feel as though it had unhooked itself from the rest of her body and drifted somewhere just behind her ribs.

She had been talking a moment before, about what exactly she couldn’t remember, but her voice thinned and disappeared as the horizon tilted ever so slightly, and she found herself gripping the side rail harder than she meant to. Her knuckles turned white and her breaths became shallow and uneven as the lift creaked upward with a stubborn, mechanical patience that suddenly felt cruel.

“Don’t look down.”

His voice came from just behind her shoulder, low and even, as though they were standing on solid ground instead of suspended in open air with nothing but a thin railing and a questionable engineering decision keeping them from a long, humiliating fall.

“I wasn’t…” she started, and then stopped. The almost-shriek she had let out gave her away and because the lift gave another subtle sway that made her suck in her breath very loudly made the lie feel pointless.

The silence stretched just long enough for her to become aware of everything at once. The wind tugged strands of her hair loose and then his hand was there, firm and steady at the small of her back. It wasn’t intrusive but unmistakably grounding, a quiet anchor that seemed to say I’ve got you without making a show of it.

It should have been enough, and it almost was. But when the platform shifted again, slight though it was, it sent a sharp spike of panic straight through her. Before she could think better of it and before she could remember who he was or how he kept himself carefully removed, she reacted and caught hold of him. Her arms wrapped around his torso with a desperation she would absolutely deny later if given the chance.

In her panic, she was afraid he would push her away, maybe even out of the lift. Instead, he held her.

Not loosely or awkwardly, but solidly, with one arm coming around her shoulders as if it belonged there and the other still steady at her back. His presence was unshaken by the wind or her sudden loss of composure, and he didn’t say anything as the lift carried them upward and her pulse slowly, reluctantly began to settle.

It took longer than she would have liked.